GUEST: Gina Harris
Director of Information Technology at TalkingRain Beverage Company
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginatharris?trk=miniprofile-photo
IT is just taking orders, fixing passwords, coding and explaining complex technical issues to those who don’t speak tech, right? Not if you are Gina Harris, from Talking Rain. IT is about viewing and treating people as change agents that require a whole business point of view.
Gina speaks to the necessity of fostering business knowledge as an IT professional in sales, negotiation, optimization of supply chain, assessing people’s brilliance and automating work-flow, vendor relations, and risk management.
Her advice, “Understand the business. Look at it from a 50,000 ft view. Look at how we make money. How we produce the goods we sell. Find out what that is all about. And then work down from the 40,000 ft, to the 30,000 ft, the 20,000 ft and understand who the players are. Who the influencers are?What the potential is to differentiate us from our competition. Really, it is ‘know the business,’ once you know the business, the IT part is a lot easier.”
She shares that having a Learning Organization is essential to her company’s overall success.
How do you ensure you have a Learning Organization?
- Empower your team with information. Paint the picture of the problem, brainstorm, research and collaborate the solution together.
- Soft skills are more important than your tech skills.
- Ability to embrace change.
- Being open minded
- Initiative
- Empathy
- Self Awareness
- Willing to Collaborate
- Thick Skinned- Don’t take rejection personally, find out what you could do better.
- Team Building
- Have each other’s back
- Humor
- No one says, “this is not my job”
- Speak to strengths and weaknesses
- Give credit and appreciate people’s skills
- Compassion & Empathy translates into Good Work
- When you treat people well, give them feedback and look them in the eye on a regular basis, they will rally behind the leadership if they feel supported.
Thank you, Gina, for your transparent and informed advice on how to generate mighty good work as an IT pro and company wide.
Visit Mighty Good Work and The Yes Works at: www.TheYesWorks.com
Found out more great info from Gina in this article: http://food.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/the-business-value-of-it–nid-14037-cid-29.html
Theme music by: Miguel Juarez
Midshow break music by : Allan Loucks www.TinEar.com
Check out this episode!